The international financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and the situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have had a great impact on many firms' financial needs. Simultaneously, several emerging countries have bet on boosting private initiatives as a way to diversify their economies and create jobs and wealth for their populations. New forms of financing have appeared that have impacted the firm's capital structure, cost of capital, and access to finance by underprivileged communities that are normally outside the formal economy. The Handbook of Research on Acceleration Programs for SMEs provides and shares knowledge on the financial mix, alternative forms of finance, capital structure, and more. It calls attention to relevant challenges, financial institutions, and governments to guarantee funds and economic and social development with new competencies, innovations, new ways of investing, entrepreneurship, and business models with new public policies. Covering topics such as earnings management, capital structure, and foreign exchange, this major reference work is an essential resource for government officials, business leaders and executives, economists, sociologists, students and faculty of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Driven primarily by political concerns to secure democracy, Portugal's accession to the EU in 1986 also served as a catalyst for dynamic economic development following a complex process of democratization and the decolonization of Europe's last empire. This book analyses how the European Union has helped shape the political process in Portugal on key institutions, elites, and its citizen's attitudes.

In the last decades, the development of innovative practices has gained considerable interest. New generations of students have grown up in a very different environment from their predecessors, one influenced by information and communications technology (ICT). In a globalized world, ICT is changing the way businesses create and capture value, how and where we work, and how we interact and communicate. Thus, some of the traditional teaching methods are rapidly becoming obsolete and unattractive to the new generation of students. Despite the increase in the development of new teaching approaches in recent years, relevant questions related to learning objectives, suitable methodologies, and impact assessment remain unanswered. Interdisciplinary and Practical Approaches to Managerial Education and Training addresses the best practices, laboratory methods, policies, protocols, and practical approaches to managerial education and training. Covering a wide range of topics such as training programs, teacher education, and online learning, it is ideal for academics, university teachers, researchers, students, public and private institutions, and professionals in managerial training education.

In the last decades, the development of innovative practices have gained considerable interest, but challenges are far from easy. New generations of students grow up in a very different environment, severally influenced by information and communications technologies (ICT). In the 2018 United Nations conference on Trade and Development, the Secretary-General of UNCTAD stated that "we live at a time of technological change that is unprecedented in its pace, scope and depth of impact". Furthermore, in a globalized world, ICT are changing the way businesses create and capture value, how and where we work, and how we interact and communicate. These allegations were prior to the actual global pandemic, which is an event that accentuated the use of ICT like never before. Thus, some of the traditional teachings methods are rapidly becoming obsolete, unattractive to the new generation of students or needing the complementarity of additional methodologies. In the last years higher education institutions as well as lectures individually, invested in the introduction and development of new teaching methods, including in activities of training. More active methodologies are being incentivized, like problem based learning (PBL), Co-creation, team based learning (TBL) or gamification. Beside the methodologies, teaching in a more technological environment is essential for promoting digital skills of lectures and students. In the context of COVID-19, practices of e-learning or b-learning increased the adoption of digital platforms, influencing teaching practices. In addition, institutions are also giving attention to the development of soft skills as a complement of hard skills, which opens a field for different teaching contexts and experiences. Despite the higher development of new teaching approaches in the recent years, relevant questions related to learning objectives, suitable methodologies and impact assessment, remain unanswered. Thus, this book is open to receive research inputs that allow the interested community to learn with experiences as well as to access insights, discussion on new forms of teaching and training methodologies and curricular programs, in all the fields of management.

This authoritative reference source covers all higher education themes in a comprehensive, accessible and comparative way. It maps the field for the twenty first century reflecting the massive changes that have occurred and the challenges ahead for future research. It provides a rich diversity of scholarly perspectives and covers the entire spectrum of higher education from a geographical, a topical and disciplinary perspective. It is unrivaled in its capacity to go beyond national boundaries and provides indispensible comparative analyses. The major reference works available about higher education have been published more than two decades ago and since then higher education has undergone major changes that have resulted in a much larger, diverse, global, and multidimensional reality. One of the main trends has been relentless expansion on a worldwide scale. This has led to mass higher education becoming a reality across continents, substantial growth in the number of countries with universal access to higher education, and great diversification of the student body. The tremendous increase in the international links in higher education, through issues such as training, students' mobility, staff mobility, research activities, is another major change. The consequence is a global dimension that is strongly associated with the intensification of international networks in which institutions and researchers explore, create and share knowledge. As a result of the changes and trends, higher education has increasingly become part of debates that highlight its complexity as an institution that combines relevant political, social, economic, and cultural purposes and dimensions. Asked to play important and varied economic and social roles, higher education has had to reshape its priorities, and organizational and decision-making structures. The growth and increased complexity of the field have both led to more attention being paid to all aspects of higher education and to the expansion of research.